French was once the pre-eminent international language of Europe; the language of diplomacy and intellectual culture, spoken from Paris to St Petersburg, the successor to Latin, the tongue of every civilised man and woman.
In 1871, the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, crushed France and annexed the territory of Alsace-Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian war. More than a decade later, Bismarck hosted the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which carved up Africa into European colonies, and spoke to the other European delegates in French.
The role French played in the past as the lingua franca of Europe has been replaced today by English. If two Europeans meet each other in any part of the continent, and they don’t speak the same native language, they will probably speak to each other in English.
I recently watched Anatomy of a Fall, a French film in which a German woman called Sandra (played by Sandra Hüller) is accused of murdering her French husband and put on trial. Sandra mostly speaks in English in the film. She even requests to give her testimony in the French court in English and there’s a flashback scene where she tells her husband that English is their “meeting point”: a way to transcend her Germanness and his Frenchness.
A couple of months ago, I watched another bilingual film. It’s called Passages and in it a German man cheats on his English boyfriend with a French woman. It is set in Paris, but the German man (Tomas, played by Franz Rogowski) speaks to the French woman in English.
We have come a long way from Bismarck addressing foreigners in Berlin in French. When German actors appear in films set in France, they tend to speak in English.
The French establishment is trying to fight against the encroachment of English. French diplomats, for example, are currently inveighing against the EU hiring people in fields such as defence and economics with assessments in English.
The UK may have exited the European Union but the English language is not leaving continental Europe any time soon.
Africa rising
The Afrobeats musician Rema performed to a sold-out O2 last Tuesday and had mixed reviews. I don’t think he would mind too much; this year his song Calm Down became the first African-led track to get 1bn streams on Spotify. Wizkid, another Afrobeats musician, performed three, widely acclaimed, sell-out shows at the O2 in late 2021.
As Declan Walsh pointed out in a brilliant essay for the New York Times, the rising prominence of African music in the west reflects wider demographic shifts. In 1950, less than 10% of the world’s population lived in Africa. By 2050, it is estimated a quarter of the world’s population will reside in Africa.
Nigeria – the country where Rema and Wizkid come from, not to mention other Afrobeats stars such as Burna Boy and Davido – will replace America as the world’s third most populous country by 2050. The US Grammy awards even established a new category this year: best African music performance.
I remember when it was considered embarrassing to be an African in the west. At school, black kids perceived as being African were derided as “fresh” (as in, “fresh off the boat”), often by other black kids. Now to be African is seen as the very epitome of cool.
Rite of passage
I am getting to that age where my friends will start getting engaged and married: in fact, it has already started. Until now, every wedding I have attended has been because the bride or groom is a relative. But by the time you read this, I will have attended the wedding of a good friend of mine.
I look forward to the convivial atmosphere, displaying my great dance skills without inhibition, sharing embarrassing stories about my friend and get away with it, and the possibility of meeting my future wife. But most of all I look forward to witnessing my friend marrying the love of his life.
• Tomiwa Owolade is a contributing writer at the New Statesman
